What To Call Them Messicans

If you've ever felt nervous about not knowing what to call us,
(Hispanic, Latins, Latinos, Spanish, etc.)
I'm here to tell you not to worry about it.
To be honest, I have no idea myself.

My beat-up Webster's dictionary defines hispanic as being
"Of or relating to Spain or a Spanish-speaking person."
It defines Latin as being "the language of ancient Rome" and
Latino is defined as "a Spanish-speaking Latin American."
(Insert confused look here.)

If I dig a little deeper, I find the following:

A person of Spanish-speaking heritage, esp. in the United States is defined as a "Latino".
A Spanish-speaking person, or a Hispanic-American is also defined as a "Hispanic".
So many definitions, and I still don't know what I am!
I know one thing with certainty, though; all these definitions are enough to give me a schizophrenic complex no green card could legally cover!

As a result of all this confusion, I've grown to feel comfortable identifying myself as "Mexican." It just makes more sense to me. After all, I was born in Mexico. This will probably not help your plight, however.
All things considered, you'll fare well now that you know to call me Mexican. But God help you if you call some guy from Puerto Rico a Mexican! It's almost like calling a man from the south a Yankee!

The best thing to do when you're not sure what heritage or nationality a person identifies with is to simply ask. A simple (and complimentary) "Where were you born?" or maybe a "Have you lived in the U.S. all your life?" will give you good information.

Just please don't start doing the tacky Cheech-And-Chong movie bit and start mouthing off like that border patrol agent when he asked "Whurr wurr ya boarne??"
I swear if just one more person gives me that line from the movie, I'm going to whip out a tortilla and smack them right upside their enchilada!